Do you sometimes wonder how to set up a good price estimation? Setting prices can be a daunting task as an independent designer. Not only is price setting a detailed and complicated task, one also needs to set up a contract with further agreements that will both guide the process and leave enough space for irregularities. 'Money Matters' is a lecture I recently gave at Flanders DC for Design on this topic. I was invited to talk about price setting and how to correctly set up quotations as part of Design Lab: briefing & quotations for graphic design on the 14th of November 2018 at Het Bos with Tom Hautekiet and Odin Saillé.
"A strong pitch, customer follow-up, transparent invoices: they all contribute to how, as a graphic designer, you can bring an assignment to a good end. In this Lab we will talk about the first contact with your client, how to set up your portfolio, how to handle pitches and how to set up a clear quotation. A must for every graphic designer who wants to make better and more efficient agreements with his customers and in this way wants to raise his services to a higher level."
The lecture was live streamed on facebook and you can rewatch it here. On the 8th of March I will give the lecture again at PXL Mad Hasselt as part of a lecture series on creative entrepreneurship. Come and hop by!
Together with a group of Belgian artists and designer I have taken upon The Kippenberger Challenge – an open invitation to equal Martin Kippenberger's average annual printed output of 7.45 books. The project is set up by Alex Farrar and Jacqueline Bebb and is an open invitation to anyone who would like to investigate book production in relation to one's work. Together with Dieter Durinck, Elke Van Kerckvoorde, Tim Onderbeke, Maud Vandeveire, Laura Bergans, Leontien Allemeersch, Buren - Oshin Albrecht & Melissa Mabesoone, Chloé D’Hauwe, and Anne De Boeck I have taken upon this challenge starting the 1st of August 2018. Keep an eye out for next year as we will be showing our work all together!
Biennale Interieur celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. 50 years Biennale, that's 50 years of the iconic logo by Boudewijn Delaere and 50 years of design history. On the occasion of this event Bureau Grusenmeyer was invited by DIFT to come up with a contribution for The New Masters.
The New Masters are a group of designers invited by DIFT who will be working on a reinterpretation of graphic design for interior design and industrial design. The starting point is an archive assembled by DIFT, in collaboration with the Design museum Gent and Biennale Interieur, consisting of catalogs, magazines, posters and newspapers from the past 50 years.
The New Masters will present the archive, in the form of a library, and the reinterpretations at Biennale Interieur 2018 in the Sint-Maartenskliniek in Kortrijk.
With: Adriaan Tas & Luca Beel, Nathalie Van der Massen, Inge Rylant, Specht Studio ism Levi Lanser, Toykyo, Studio Mattan, Now Is The New Later, Annelies Vanoost, Re-Do, Bureau Grusenmeyer, Luca Gent, Corbin Mahieu, Kymo one, Kritis & Kritis, Wonderwalls, Ship of Fools, Mathieu Cieters en DIFT natuurlijk (Fien Meelberghs i.s.m. Veerle Verschooren en Broos Stoffels).
“We have lived for too long in the dreary region of homo economicus, our lives shadowed by principles of self-interest, utilitarian 'necessities', instrumental moralities. But we are permitted to hope; to revive those great and optimistic words of Breton: Perhaps the imagination is on the verge of recovering its rights. We must welcome, as did the surrealists, the re-entry into modern life of homo ludens,the imaginative man at play, the intuitive visionary.”
Mel Gooding in A Book of Surrealist Games, 1995
I am a firm believer of just showing up to your work. The idea that, if you find ways to engage with your work and get your hands dirty, your work flows. For this reason I will often challenge myself in various ways. I set myself a few restrictions with a deadline and off I go. Last year, I engaged in a studio residency where I had one goal for two weeks: find something to do and make with my paper bin. My paper bin is a beautiful collection of unused test prints, torn envelopes, tiny paper scraps, mis-cut papers and more… It is a beautiful mess. So the question arose whether I could make something out of it? I decided to spend a full two weeks with nothing else to do in my studio other than engaging with my paper bin.
Now as I said earlier, I am big fan of showing up to work. Often times just spending time with what is in front of you make ideas come to surface. Add some deadlines and restrictions to that and you are sure to get into a creative process where things unfold.
Many of us have learned to develop projects conceptually. While a strong concept is at the base of any good design project, the simple notion of just wanting to make something, the idea of playing and having fun creatively, of loosing yourself in the process often gets lost. But strangely it is one of the primary reasons many of us start design school in the first place!
John Huizinga defined our human species as a homo ludens, specifying that play is primary to and a necessary condition of the generation of culture. Huizing states that ‘play is older than culture, […] and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing’. As such play is at the base of our nature.
However, throughout the course of our lives, we often unlearn how to play. Our lives get over-shadowed with utilitarian necessities. We live by our to do lists and we become unable think out of the box. Now I believe it is necessary for every human being to be able to play, but when you have a creative practice going on, it is of primal importance you are able to get your hands dirty.
That is why I will often challenge myself with a project where I have to kind of just… play. As we all know you need a playground in order to play. So last year, during my studio residency, I decided my paper bin would be my playground with I would show up once a week during the coming year to make something with the paper scraps it contains.
After two weeks of working with the pieces of paper and researching into their possibilities I finally decided to just arrange the paper scraps in plastic bags. I liked their accidental shape and form - slightly deformed by being thrown in the bin. Torn, to affirm the end of their existence. Cut, in an accidental pretty shape. I decided to keep their primal shape and play with them in order to find a composition.
This play has now been going on for a good year and a half. It has piled up to about 110 assemblages. For the coming three weeks I am going to engage once more in a studio residency trying to finish my year long play. Have a look here for the full archive and watch it grow!
For this group exhibition curator Tuur Delodder and Johan Laethem went in search of visual artists whose creation process does not consist of a pure executive act that is dictated by a process, but which occurs during the (material) creation. During this process coincidence, interaction and the context of the work influence the outcome. The exhibition include works by Kristof Van Gestel, Johan Gelper, Gerd Ververs, Lauren Grusenmeyer, Frank & Robbert, Half Agustsdottir, Vaast Colson and Catharina Van Eetvelde.
The exhibition opens on Thursday 22 February 2018 at 7.30 pm in the corridors of the academy. Welcome! Read more here.
This week the new campaign for 'Ik Koop Belgisch / J'Achète Belge' (I Buy Belgian) is launched by Flanders DC in collaboration with MAD, WBDM and Creamoda. For this, Bureau Grusenmeyer had the honor to design the logo and identity.
The aim of the campaign is to promote Belgian brands in the design and fashion industry. Since 2015, Flanders DC puts local talent in the spotlight by using their 'I Buy Belgian' campaign, which you know from the window stickers in the shopping streets and the hashtag #ikkoopbelgisch. Since this month, the French variation "J'Achète Belge" (#jachetebelge) is added by which the campaign goes national.
The initiative is well represented by numerous stores that sell Belgian brands and through the brands themselves, to create awareness of Belgian production. But there is still more to be done! Spread the love for all things made in Belgium by proudly promoting our campaign! Get your stickers at Flanders DC and promote the hashtag #IKOOPBELGISCH or #JACHETEBELGE.
Read more here.
